Temple Beth El youth group marks Purim with a Star Wars-inspired skit

Purim was celebrated with a skit put on by its youth group, under the direction of Cantor Shoshana Brown.

Kristina FontesCorrespondent

FALL RIVER - While a great deal of the spotlight was on St. Patrick’s Day last week, members of the local Jewish community enjoyed a festive weekend celebrating the holiday of Purim.

At Temple Beth El in Fall River, Purim was celebrated with a skit put on by its youth group, under the direction of Cantor Shoshana Brown.

Brown and her husband, Rabbi Mark Elber, have been the joint spiritual leaders of Temple Beth El since July. They share many of the same duties, including leading the prayers and chanting from the Torah during services, visiting the sick, and their dedication to issues of social and environmental justice in the Southcoast area.

As Cantor, Brown is “the final authority for keeping our services faithful to the traditional music modes — in Hebrew nusakh — for the different seasons, holidays, and times of day.” She also plays guitar during Friday night services and teaches Jewish songs to the younger children in Hebrew School.

Brown and her husband revived the Hebrew School, which had been dormant for eight years, and the seven students that attend are also members of the youth group.

The group’s first meeting was actually a bowling party for Brown’s son, Lev, and since then they have been busy working on their Purim play.

Next month, they plan to visit the planetarium at Bristol Community College.

Although the group has only been together for a little over two months, Brown has goals that she would like to see these bright youngsters achieve:

“I want the kids to have a safe place to celebrate being Jewish together; I want them to be friends with one another; I want them to have a vehicle for doing Jewish rituals and mitzvot (good deeds) together — especially toward the elderly, the less privileged, and the environment.”

And Brown is already “seeing these kids now with such enthusiasm and hunger for learning about Judaism, God, and their heritage ... it’s just so heart-warming.”

From sunset on March 15 until sundown on March 16, they and other members of their faith community celebrated the holiday of Purim.

Purim — Hebrew for “lots” — falls on the 14th of Adar on the Jewish calendar. It is a celebration of the day a terrible plot was foiled.

According to the Book of Esther, Haman, the royal vizier to King Ahasuerus of Persia, wanted to wipe out all of the Jews in the empire. He cast lots to decide which day would be most advantageous to carry out his dark plans, and that was the 14th of Adar. However, he was stopped thanks to the brave actions of Mordechai and Esther.

Since then, this day of deliverance has been celebrated with revelry, usually around the same time as Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day.

Purim is celebrated by observing five religious obligations: The Book of Esther is read aloud from a scroll, charity is given to the poor, gifts of food are sent to friends and neighbors, a certain amount of drinking is encouraged, and naturally there is a Purim Feast.

There is also the Purim skit, or Purimshpiel.

This year, the youth group marked this humorous and festive day with a Star Wars-inspired skit: “Star Wars 5774: The Revenge of Shushan.” The title plays on the Jewish year of 5774, the number of sequels/prequels in the Star Wars series, and Shushan, the town in Persia where the action takes place.

Purim is a holiday of humor and revelry because it could have commemorated something so much worse, had Haman been able to carry out his abhorrent plans.

According to Brown, a day that might have been unspeakably tragic has been “lightened by the humor and merriment of this holiday which looks squarely at the danger that Jews face in the world, but turns fear into comedy.”